***Packs more of a punch on first listen than "Roar" did, but overall it's incredibly lacklustre for a second single. I'm sure it will grow on me like "Roar", but "Dark Horse" and "Walking On Air" were so much better on first listen.

***I quite like the verses and you think this could be quite good and then you get to the chorus. However "Unconditional, unconditionally" is very bad, offputting and cringeworthy. The song loses a lot of momentum at that point and the rest just goes through the motions and doesn't do much for me. I'll pass on this one.Last edited: 18.12.2013 07:45

*****I didn't like Walking On Air, I really didn't like Roar, Dark Horse wasn't great, but this really is! Off first listen her vocals are great and unlike the other 3 tracks released from the Prism era so far, this really packs a punch. Her best in a while for sure.

***It may grow on me but for now I get nothing out of it except a sense that "Unconditionally" is really too long a word to try and cram in as a song title, especially when you're Katy Perry who can't seem to string two or three syllables together without pausing. Aside from that it's really very bland.

**It's a big no for me this time. "Firework" could be criticised for pandering to a marginalised demographic that the songwriters don't know how to properly empathise with. This is recalling that in a slightly different way for me.

When you're in the Katy Perry business, you want/need the general public to lap up your releases. The problem is that they aren't working for them, so they'll need something in return to do it. What is provided by the team? Those super catchy hooks everyone seems to love. It's a system that treats them well.

However, the public aren't going to connect to all of these hooks, so the music moguls have to be careful with which hooks they choose to unleash upon the public. I like to imagine they have a small test group for these sorts of things, possibly of people with internal connections, if they outsourced too far, they'd have major trouble with leaks. Nonetheless, I can imagine that these test groups (if they exist) would be of good use, since after all, artists like Katy Perry seem almost unable to fail.

It'd surely be possible to fail though. Anyone who finds themselves in that record industry bubble serves to only further isolate themselves from the general public, and will slowly find more difficulty getting across what they're after. I feel that "Unconditionally" is something of a crack in the fortress that comes from this effect.

It's not necessarily that it doesn't connect, because it obviously still is to an extent. The thing is that when I listen to this, all these ideas rush to my head. More specifically, I hear the chorus and can just only imagine someone thinking/saying "This is what you want, right? right?! RIGHT?!!", because after all, it has a melody and it stands out because surely no one's ever tried to say 'unconditionally' like that before. It ends up removing me from the song because I can just no longer take it seriously without laughing. I just cannot recall the last time I've heard something sound so agonisingly forced. Agonising is appropriate too, as I don't enjoy hearing it despite the amusement.

So why isn't it getting a 1*? I guess it's a bit too harsh to put it down for one thing like that, and then additionally that would be the hallmark of attention seeking irrationality, which is not what I'm after. Oh and then I guess apart from that it's mostly fine, the production does have some texture to it that's interesting to me. It meanders quite a bit otherwise though.

I do find it fascinating that a lot of the follow ups to the biggest hits of 2013 are languishing in the charts, and it looks like the #11 curse is back into play. As a fan of patterns, I'm all for it.

**Poor because trying to cram a six syllable song title into a chorus is awkward and very painful! Katy has always been very hit and miss for me. When she hits the target (eg. Roar, Hot n Cold, Teenage Dream) she is brilliant, but when she misses the target, she is awful.

I thought Dark Horse was the 2nd single? It is much better than this!Last edited: 16.02.2014 08:50

***Really can't be rating this anymore than a 3 for the simple reason is I liked 'Roar' a whole lot better but i've only ranked that a 4.Nit picky I know but it's just never really made me make attention to it, really poor choice in single but i'm sure we'll get plenty off this album to make up for it.